Rehabilitation, risk management and prisoners’ rights
| Author | Elaine Genders,Elaine Player |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895813502500 |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2014, Vol. 14(4) 434 –457
© The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1748895813502500
crj.sagepub.com
Rehabilitation, risk
management and
prisoners’ rights
Elaine Genders
University College London, UK
Elaine Player
Kings College, London, UK
Abstract
The expansion of prison treatment programmes for personality disordered offenders as part of
the ‘Rehabilitation Revolution’ in England and Wales raises significant questions about the ways in
which inherent concepts of risks, rights and rehabilitation are selectively perceived and employed.
Current policy supports rehabilitative opportunities that address the risks offenders pose to the
public, yet remains inattentive to the risk of harm that rehabilitative programmes can pose to
offenders. Examination of the risk of personal harm intrinsic to one rehabilitative intervention for
personality disordered prisoners – the democratic therapeutic community – illustrates how the
selective acknowledgement of human rights in contemporary penal policy, whereby prisoners’
rights are routinely tied to a status of less eligibility, has important consequences that both
undermine the integrity of programme delivery and seriously jeopardize the positive duties that
are inherent in the duty of care owed to prisoners by the State.
Keywords
Human rights, prisons, rehabilitation, risk
Introduction
This article will argue that the legal status of prisoners in the current promotion of reha-
bilitative interventions, and particularly in the development of therapeutic programmes
for personality disordered inmates, is both uncertain and unprotected. This applies not
only to human rights that permit a degree of limitation in pursuit of other social goals,
Corresponding author:
Elaine Player, Dickson Poon School of Law, Kings College, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
Email: Elaine.player@kcl.ac.uk
502500CRJ14410.1177/1748895813502500Criminology & Criminal JusticeGenders and Player
2013
Article
Genders and Player 435
but also to those rights that are defined as absolute and beyond compromise; most nota-
bly, the right to life and the right to be protected from torture and other cruel and inhuman
treatment. The consequences of this not only weigh against the integrity and sustainabil-
ity of rehabilitative provision but also seriously threaten the legitimacy of therapeutic
prison regimes.
Our concern to investigate the ways in which risk, rights and rehabilitation are negoti-
ated in prisons was prompted by two related incidents – the unlawful killing of Robert
Coello and the subsequent self-mutilation of his killer, fellow prisoner Lee Foye. Coello
was beaten and stamped to death in his cell at HMP Grendon Underwood in August
2010. While awaiting trial at HMP Woodhill, Foye cut off his own ears in separate inci-
dents three months apart (Allison, 2011). Convicted of Coello’s murder in November
2011, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 35 years, the sen-
tence to run concurrently with the 16 year minimum life term he was already serving for
the murder of his former lover. At trial the court heard how Coello, who had volunteered
for admission to the therapeutic regime at HMP Grendon, was attacked after he upset
prisoners by talking in group therapy about the offences for which he had been convicted
– four counts of rape against a child. Contrary to usual practice, Coello had been accepted
and placed on arrival at the prison on a wing with prisoners who were not sex offenders
because there was no room on the more specialized wing to which he would ordinarily
have been allocated. At Foye’s trial the Director of Therapy at Grendon admitted that he
had been ‘uneasy’ about this accommodation of Coello, but that it had been made clear
to him ‘in no uncertain terms’ that the prison ‘needed to fill these beds no matter who was
available’ (McClatchey, 2011). The death of Coello and the self-mutilation of Foye raise
difficult questions about the institutional tensions surrounding the intersection of risk,
rights and rehabilitation in custodial settings. Despite the rhetoric of official policy, the
reduction of risk, the protection of rights and the pursuit of rehabilitation are not always
mutually compatible objectives in the prison context. We argue that, how they are cur-
rently interpreted and incorporated into the management of prisons has seriously damag-
ing implications for the extent and nature of the duty of care that is extended to prisoners
exposed to intensive psychologically informed treatment interventions.
Rehabilitation: Obligation and Implementation
While the purpose of imprisonment has long been contested, its rehabilitative function
has gained increasing international and domestic recognition. However, the underlying
rationale of the rehabilitative principle remains unclear. Article 10(3) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1976 places a legal obligation on signa-
tory states to provide positive prison regimes and refers to the essential aim of the treat-
ment of prisoners as being ‘their reformation and social rehabilitation’. In contrast, the
United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1957), although
not formally binding upon states, specifically links the treatment needs of prisoners to
the protection of society against crime (Rule 58). Between these extremes, the European
Prison Rules (2006) advise that ‘the regime for sentenced prisoners shall be designed to
enable them to lead a responsible and crime free life’ (Rule 102.1). The duty under inter-
national law to provide rehabilitative regimes has become increasingly recognized in
To continue reading
Request your trial